Beyond the Highland Mist

Page 41

Plans of just how he would seduce his lovely wife replaced all worries. With a dangerous smile and purpose in his stride, the Hawk went off in search of Adrienne.
CHAPTER 13
ADRIENNE WALKED RESTLESSLY, HER MIND WHIRLING. HER brief nap in the sunshine had done nothing to dispel her wayward thoughts. Thoughts like just how capable, not to mention how willing, the Hawk was of providing babies to fill that dratted nursery.
Instinctively she avoided the north end of the bailey, unwilling to confront the smithy and those unnerving images still fermenting in her mind from when she’d been ill.
South she strayed, beckoned by the glimmer of sun off a glass roof and curiosity deep as a loch. These were no barbaric people, she mused. And if she didn’t miss her guess, she was walking right toward a hothouse. How brilliant was the mind that had fashioned Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea. It was impenetrable on the west end due to the cliffs, which presented a sheer, unscalable drop to the fierce ocean. Spreading north, south, and east, the keep itself was sealed behind monstrous walls, all of seventy to eighty feet high. How strange that the same mind which had designed Dalkeith as a stronghold had made it so beautiful. The complicated mind of a man who provided for the necessity of war, yet savored the times of peace.
Careful, getting intrigued are you?
When she reached the hothouse, Adrienne noticed that it was attached to a circular stone tower. During her many hours of surfing the Internet she’d been drawn time and time again to things medieval. The mews? Falcons. It was there they kept and trained falcons for hunting.
Drawn by the lure of animals and missing Moonshadow with an ache in her chest, Adrienne approached the gray stone broch. What had Hawk meant about treating her like one of his falcons? she wondered. Well, she’d just find out for herself, so she’d know what to avoid in the future.
Tall and completely circular, the broch had only one window, which was covered by a slatted shutter. Something about the dark, she remembered reading. Curious, she approached the heavy door and pushed it aside, closing it behind her lest any falcons be tempted to escape. She wouldn’t give the Hawk any excuse to chastise her.
Slowly her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom and she was able to make out several empty perches in the dim light. Ah, not the mews, this must be the training broch. Adrienne tried to recall the way the trainers of yore had skilled their birds for the hunt.
The broch smelled of lavender and spice, the heavy musk from the attached hothouse permeating the stone walls. It was a peaceful place. Oh, how easily she could get used to never hearing the rush of traffic again; never having to look over her shoulder again; never seeing New Orleans again—an end to all the running and hiding and fear.
The walls of the broch were cool and clean to the touch, nothing like the stone walls that had once held her prisoner in the gritty dirt of a New Orleans prison cell.
Adrienne shuddered. She’d never forget that night.
The fight had begun over—of all things—a trip to Acapulco. Adrienne hadn’t wanted to go. Eberhard had insisted. “Fine, then come with me,” she’d said. He was too busy, he couldn’t take the time off, he’d replied.
“What good is all your money if you can’t take the time to enjoy life?” Adrienne had asked.
Eberhard hadn’t said a word, he’d simply fixed her with a disappointed look that made her feel like an awkward adolescent, a gauche and unwanted orphan.
“Well, why do you keep sending me on these vacations by myself?” Adrienne asked, trying to sound mature and cool, but her question ended on a plaintive note.
“How many times must I explain this to you? I’m trying to educate you, Adrienne. If you think for a moment that it will be easy for an orphan who has never been in society to be my wife, think again. My wife must be cultured, sophisticated, European—”
“Don’t send me back to Paris,” Adrienne had said hastily. “It rained for weeks, last time.”
“Don’t interrupt me again, Adrienne.” His voice had been calm; too calm and carefully measured.
“Can’t you come with me—just once?”
“Adrienne!”
Adrienne had stiffened, feeling foolish and wrong, even though she’d known she wasn’t being unreasonable. Sometimes she had felt like he didn’t want her around, but that didn’t make sense—he was marrying her. He was preparing her to be his wife.
Still, she’d had doubts….
After her last trip to Rio, she’d returned to hear from her old friends at the Blind Lemon that Eberhard hadn’t been seen in his offices all that much—but he had been seen in his flashy Porsche with an equally flashy brunette. A twinge of jealousy had speared her. “Besides, I hear you don’t work too hard while I’m gone,” she had muttered.